A new observational window in extragalactic gamma-ray astronomy 🎉

Posted on November 21, 2019November 21, 2019 by Yvonne Becherini

Today is a very exciting day for extragalactic gamma-ray astronomy!

The H.E.S.S. and MAGIC Collaborations have detected VHE gamma rays from Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) for the first time. This of course has tremendous consequences, because this means that such detections are possible even at extreme energies, and so we might expect many more in the near future.

In addition, what H.E.S.S. is teaching everybody with this publication, is that one can detect a GRB emission even ten hours after the GRB alert has been given. This is very important, and gives the message to all ground-based Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes that, one can observe a GRB even hours after the alert, when darkness comes and atmospheric conditions are favourable. Hence, it is not strictly necessary to observe seconds or minutes after the alert is given, if the observing conditions are not met. Observing hours after the alert will carry important information about the development of the GRB VHE gamma ray emission over time.

The results published in Nature are also an excellent perspective for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) and for our ALTO/COMET project as a new observational window in extragalactic gamma-ray astronomy has been opened.

Read the Nature papers here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03503-6

Direct link to the H.E.S.S. paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1743-9

Popular science articles in Swedish:

https://fof.se/artikel/rekordenergi-fran-kosmisk-explosion-uppmatt

Second ALTO paper accepted in JHEAp!March 28, 2023
I am happy to announce that our ALTO paper on the “Sensitivity to point-like sources of the ALTO atmospheric particle detector array, designed for 200GeV–50TeV gamma-ray astronomy” has been accepted for publication in The Journal of High Energy Astrophysics (JHEAp). You may find the arxiv version here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.15248 And the Publisher’s version here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214404823000125 Enjoy!
SEMLA/ALTO paper available on arxivMay 17, 2021
Our first ALTO paper, concerning how we analyse the Monte Carlo simulations, is accepted for publication in JINST and is now visible on arxiv at this link. Our method can be useful also for other ground-based gamma-ray observatories using particle detectors. We also make first considerations on the utility of the primary and secondary detectors....
First ALTO paper accepted!May 14, 2021
Friday’s joy! Our first peer-reviewed ALTO paper has been accepted for publication in JINST (@sissa, @IOPPublishing) and it will be available Open Access thanks to the DISA centre at Linnaeus University. Arxiv version visible on Monday, May 17, 2021. 💫🍾
Our H.E.S.S. paper on KUV 00311-1938 and PKS 1440-389 is published in MNRASJune 1, 2020
Hej! Take a look to our latest paper: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/494/4/5590/5824174 where we publish the VHE emission from KUV 00311-1930 and from PKS 1440-389 with H.E.S.S. data. We also analyse lower-energy data and combine with existing observations to constrain the distance of the two sources. Happy reading!
A new observational window in extragalactic gamma-ray astronomy 🎉November 21, 2019
Today is a very exciting day for extragalactic gamma-ray astronomy! The H.E.S.S. and MAGIC Collaborations have detected VHE gamma rays from Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) for the first time. This of course has tremendous consequences, because this means that such detections are possible even at extreme energies, and so we might expect many more in...